Wings Wouldn't Help You Down
by RumpelstiltskinWantsMySanity
Summary: Escaping was the first step, the hardest, but it was the most worth it. When Clary's greatest enemy becomes her only savior, she's thrown into a life she never knew she wanted. A life of freedom. But, as she's being hunted down, and her life shatters before her, she's got no choice but to seek comfort in all that Jonathan Wayland can offer. {Lemons/Language/AU}
1. In a Bulletproof Vest

_Clary_

* * *

_Escape, escape, escape, escape. _

Mud is sloshing between my swollen toes, leaves and twigs catching in my knotted hair. My feet thud onto the forest floor, their pacing uneven and fast and scared like a broken heartbeat. I can't breathe quick enough; my lungs are _burning _inside me. The forest around me is a blur of ridged brown, harsh sunlight, and the overwhelming green of the bushes, leaves.

And mortification has me in a deadly headlock every time I hear their thundering footsteps behind me, crisp, cruel. Tactical.

One misstep, and I've lost the wisp of freedom I've managed to grab onto. Yet, I know I'll never fully taste true freedom, even if I manage—by some godly miracle—to escape them. Not with these damned iron cuffs chafing my wrists.

Acutely, I feel the trees mocking me, the birds laughing at me, at how foolish I must be to try to escape from them. How foolish we all must have been, the three of us. Simon, Emma, and I. We've all fled in different directions, Simon to the east, Emma northwest, and I, southwest.

I refuse to tell myself that they've caught Simon and Emma, that my two dear friends have been dragged back to that god-forsaken hell.

I begin to wonder—after realizing I've been running long enough that the greenery has masked Valentine's Keep, where they chained us—why they're not using their guns, their clever traps and tricks. They must be confident.

If I ran faster, would I make it far enough to find a place to hide? Or are they already twelve steps ahead of me?

My world splits into so many dizzying pieces when the first gunshot ripples through the air, and I veer to the right. Fear—there's _so much fear_, just crawling up my body, a hungry demon wanting more and more and _more_. I don't know how much more I can give.

More gunshots singe the forest, so many that they're all I can hear. Dodging them is exhausting; it slows me down.

Without a thought in my head, I seize the little strength grappling to remain in me, and sprint until I can see and feel and hear nothing but the awaiting freedom, which will be all mine to toy with, embrace, if I can _just go a little farther._

The faint sound of rushing water shoots an idea into my desperate mind. And, the chance of this bud of an idea working out is like grabbing onto a thread during a hurricane: dangerously close to hopeless.

But it could all fall into place perfectly. It's either this, or going back to that nightmare teeming with evil, going back to the Keep.

I look to my left, where I'm almost positive this river is going to be, and, to my immense dismay, my eyes latch onto their black uniforms, their hooded faces. The cockiness in every one of their moves.

They should take off these fucking cuffs, and then we'll see how cocky they're daring to get.

I'm calculating how on god's green earth I'm going to get past them, and stupidly, it hits me—I'm in a forest. Not a meter of this place is without its own arsenal of hiding spots, obstacles, shelters.

The bastards chasing me from behind are far enough that, if I duck under one of the several protruding, large roots jutting from the mud-and-grass-covered floor, they could possibly fail to notice.

A few seconds of contemplation pass, and I've stumbled under a root, which is suffocating in moss and beautiful little flowers. I wonder how old it is, how much it must have endured. I'm almost unable to keep my heaving breaths from being too loud, but as I hear boot-clad feet thunder above me, my paranoia surges, paralyzing me. I make no noise, no movement. I'm nothing, but fear.

When they've gone, when the scent of hunger, anger, has been kissed away by the smell of sweet forest, I peer cautiously around the tree root. Relief cascades inside me, fresh and cool like a summer breeze, when there isn't a single black uniform staining the area around me.

The weight of the world is no longer mine.

But, when their thick skulls register the fact that I've probably hidden, they'll come back, scavenging. And no doubt with their guns even handier this time.

Images of getting dragged back by the hair, or a dart of serum that'll knock me out cold snipping right through my unguarded skin, sends my numb, yet throbbing feet padding quietly through the maze of trees and bushes towards the raging river, about half a mile away. The steady sound of gushing water seems to twine around my heart, my mind, calming me in the way only nature can.

Has Simon gotten to the abandoned grocery store a few miles from the Keep, as we'd planned? Has he found the maps rumored to be hidden under the counters? And has Emma found the rogue tribe of rebels near the northwest coast?

The wicked clinking of the chains linking together the iron cuffs gagging my wrists, rings awfully through the forest. But the near-ethereal radiance of the nature encompassing me, buttery sunlight, enchanting flowers and all, has me in a daze. Funny, how it's all so breath-taking when I'm not running for my life.

The pace of my steps increases with each passing second, because the Keep's guards can—and _will—_double back at any moment.

Grass and mud soon become swampy, the blissful sounds of the gnashing, powerful river thriving around me, along with the buzz of dragonflies and the crunching of dead leaves and sticks as small creatures skitter over them.

Pungent river-smell attacks the air in large tendrils. My nose scrunches, and then scrunches even further at the clacking of my chains, every time I move.

I sigh quietly, but the river is alive around me. I'm excited, anticipating the taste freedom. Does it get bitter after a while? Or shall it remain charming, like most love?

A few more metres, and there it is. The water, before me: deep, opaque with mud, and unrelentingly turbulent. Expectedly, there is a small dock—just three or four planks for decaying wood, and a raft, paired with an oar, tied to the dock. I could use the sharp edges of my chains to fray the rope, and then . . .

I stand in front of it, dirty water spraying onto me. Soft, silent tears drag down my grimy cheeks.

And I'm taking one weighted step towards it, tears morphing into soundless sobs. Two steps. Three. Five. The wet wood of the dock has brushed my toes.

_Free, a hair's breadth away from freedom. _

Then, a sky-shredding crack splits my heart into two, and all I know is pain. I collapse onto the dock, my eyes and mouth propped wide in agony, blood slithering down my back, poisoning my filthy clothes. My wrists scraping against the iron cuffs is what finally awakens me from my shock.

I scream so brutally; my throat feels as if it's been sanded with tree bark.

So close. _So fucking_ _close_.

There isn't a word to describe the incinerating animosity I feel the moment a hearty laugh seeps into my ears.

"You caught the bitch, thank god," the words slither out of Hodge Starkweather's mouth. I hate that I know every one of their voices, their names. _Hate _it. "It's like killing a mosquito, isn't it, Jonathan?" _Wayland. _Wayland shot me.

Of course, he shot me. Vengeful, arrogant piece of dog shit.

Someone snorts, though it's definitely not Wayland. "The whore's filthy, diseased, like a mosquito," says Bat Velasquez, as if it's an epiphany he's made. A boot wipes across my leg, smearing mud all over my skin. "For once in your pathetic life, Starkweather, you've babbled something correctly."

I'm too paralyzed to speak, to unleash the living anger within. I'm tired beyond belief, I realize, and my eyelids shut.

"Oi," Starkweather snarls. "_Watch it_. You'd be no less of a whore than her—"

"If that's even possible," points out one of the more useless guards, Malachi Dieudonne. The statement pulls a laugh from everyone. Though, I can't hear Wayland. Perhaps, to my luck, he's left, to help alert everyone else that I've been found, that I'm bleeding disgraceful blood and everyone should rejoice.

I register footsteps at my side, hopefully not Starkweather's, because the old pervert makes me want to peel the skin off his body, _slowly_, more so than the others.

A calloused finger tucks under my chin, roughly lifting it up. My tired eyes stagger open, immediately melding with a bored, but slightly curious gaze.

"Go find the others, and alert the Keep she's been found and killed," Wayland orders, voice smooth like the flow of calm water. His features turn devious, malicious, as his stare probes at me. A smirk paints his lips cruelly.

I don't let myself be scared. Death is a new type of freedom, I suppose.

Surprise, coupled with spikes of envy, is evident in Velasquez's voice, "You're going to kill the whore yourself? Keep the glory to yourself? Unfair, don't you think?"

"I'd like to enlighten you, in case your small brain somehow hasn't caught on, even after all these years: I don't give a damn about unfair." His voice suggests a sarcastic smile on his face. His finger under my chin slips away, but I'm too drained of energy—and blood—to acknowledge the pain.

"You're a real pain in the ass, Wayland," Starkweather quips.

"And you'll be much, much worse if you talk to your superior like that again." Wayland sighs, bored. "Just go. Find the two other morons that escaped, if you're so inclined. The search team for them is bound to be more incompetent than you fools, so why don't you go make yourselves useful?"

If wishes come true, then I'm wishing a thousand times that Simon and Emma have touched the freedom they've dreamt of. This world is so harsh to dreamers, anyway. Perhaps the gods above will let there be an exception. _Please_, please, let today be an exception.

Everything around me starts to get quieter, and the bellowing river I'd so admired, subdues to a gentle lull. And I'm so, so sleepy.

When I can at least manage, through the fading world, to recognize that Starkweather, Velasquez, and Dieudonne are out of earshot, I groan in protest of whatever I'm sure Wayland will do next.

"I'm going to remove that bullet," he assures quietly, voice rough. I have the flittering energy to be incredulous, but then it ebbs like the ink in a pen. "And if a sound comes out of your mouth, Clarissa Fairchild, the entire search team will know your location, and you'll be dead before you can pray to stay alive."

Mustering the strength to grumble a response is a feat only the gods can achieve in my state, so I nod, barely.

"Hang in there," he whispers. It's so soothing, I want to let go of every tether and just sleep, but the picture of Emma negotiating with the tribe of rebels for shelter, and Simon, glancing at the maps with renewed faith, startles the life in me to dance a little longer. If only for them.

I hear the unzipping of a backpack, and suddenly, my lips are being parted by Wayland's slender fingers—they taste bitter, like sterilizer—and a handkerchief is between my teeth. "Bite down if you must," he instructs, though kindly.

I only moan, biting down weakly, because I cannot manage anything more, once something ice-cold cuts through the skin on the back of my right shoulder blade. Another cluster of blood gladly dampens my ratchet hospital-esque gown. More metal enters the cut he just made, and, I can sense there isn't a morsel of doubt in his movements as he picks that repulsive bullet from my body, as he cradles it in his palm, then chucks it into the roaring river watching us a few feet away. A needle swivels in and out of the cut, and I don't know how many minutes pass before he's finished with all the gauze, too.

I can identify the feel of a syringe biting into me no matter how alive or dead I am, no matter how fixed or broken. So, as soon as I sense my skin splitting for the tip of a syringe, every shred of resistance festering within me explodes disastrously. I jerk my arm away, about to damn it all and let out a scream.

"_What part of 'don't make a noise' fell deaf to you?_" Wayland growls warningly, his cunning, honey eyes crackling in frustration.

He's taken notice of how I'm looking at the syringe, and the sigh he lets out holds a note of defeat. "It's a healing serum, Clarissa. Remember the ones the Keep had used on you initially?" He softly eases my arm back to him. "When you'd screamed from pain so loud, you'd woken the guards from all the way up on the roof?" I'm so concentrated on looking at the needle tip inching closer to my vein, at the consoling brush of his voice against my ears, I don't even question why he remembers my screaming from years and years ago. "You'd fallen right to sleep—", the needle's in my skin, and he's pushing the serum into my bloodstream, "–when Graymark had given it to you, like a little baby would have done." A fond grin twitches at his mouth.

Despite everything, I've forgotten what it's like to be healed, and it feels nice to remember.

* * *

**A/N: I've been so excited to write this, I finished this whole thing last night ; -; Please review! They make me 10/10 very happy :) I've been on the worst Sarah J. Maas high as of late, so I got super inspired to make clace magical and stuff lol. Also, guess who read Half Truths for the ninth time last week? this bitch right here. sigh.**

**Also, lmk if you want Jace's PoV next chapter! **

**Anyway, I hope all of you have had a wonderful day, and I'll see you in the next one! **


	2. My Life Isn't Mine

_Jace_

* * *

Half a thought in my head, and the iron draped harshly over her wrists has split, like a mouth opening wide. My hands swivel slightly through the air towards the thrashing river, seemingly furious in its confines.

The earth emerges from its concealing waters, almost victoriously, gracefully. A flash of time, and a bridge of mud and rock stretches starkly across the river now, a bridge born from my very own making.

Her body, gathered up in my arms, is delicate, the loving strum of a guitar on a star-flecked night. The serum thankfully has swept her into its calming grasp; she's sleeping, her chest rising and falling like routine tides.

My eyes rummage cautiously around our surroundings, scouring for the smallest blot of black uniform, for any trace of their cunning, sick presences. Thirty minutes, and all this place will have seen will be black. They'll be delirious with overcoming fury, leaking it from every pore in their bodies, at how easily they've been fooled—if only I could stay long enough to witness it.

Pride sashays through me as laughter would, fulfilling and hearty, as I walk across the slippery bridge, the rock crumpling in my wake.

Not _only_ have I, Jonathan Herondale, played a years-long, fickle game with the Keep, chipping away enough information that within a few months, give or take, the Keep will have fallen to its knees, bleeding out slowly. But I've also scooped away their most treasured weapon: Clarissa Fairchild, the last living Shadowhunter.

The Keep, nearly fourteen distant years ago, had allied with a legion of forces to turn the old city of Alicante, brimming with the angelic life of the Shadowhunters it held, into a spectacle of ash and dust and blood. The roars, screams, sobs of the people that bled and mourned will only stop echoing through Idris when the world stops spinning.

Even then, will it be silent?

Valentine Morgenstern had then greedily plucked whatever remains he could find from the battlegrounds, as if tearing a page from a book. And the only page he found, intact and alive, happened to be a little girl with fire for hair and ivy for eyes.

Looking at her now, fragile and scarred, the promise of what could have been slumbers distantly within her. If brandished skilfully, in just the right way, she could be her own asset: a breathing weapon with a mind and human logic.

It might be an ocean's burden on her, however. A whispered hope too far gone.

The scent of her coppery blood pasted on both of our bodies could very well be like smoke from a campfire, so when I send a raging storm of dust behind us to disperse of it, I'm startled by the overwhelming need to glance back, if only just for a second, at the gruesome grey spires of the Keep gazing condescendingly at the trees around it.

To savor it just once, before it buckles beneath itself.

-()-

The eerie silence of the forest slackens as if the dwindling flame of a candle, unevenly blending with the chatters sprouting from the clumps of people from the small village about a quarter of a mile downstream. The sky is pulling its curtain of night dramatically today; the pinks and reds of sunset have stuck around for quite a while, though with summer seeping into full force, it's expected.

Breezes trickle past me, the skyscraper trees growing shorter, during the time it takes me to get to the town—Hateno. She's still asleep, which is a blessing and a curse in itself, because I haven't thought of anything to say to her when the serum dims, but my arms really fucking hurt and I'm really wringing the "damsel in distress" thing to its truest form.

It's all very serene, though. Too serene. Layers and layers of calm to conceal looming danger. And, even as the people, shops, and homes of the town emerge around me—as life and safety cages me, that danger is still subtle poison in the air.

The stares of the people seem to gouge out our skin, to knit stories about why we're here and what must have happened to this sleeping woman in my arms, limp and embraced by dirt and blood. The guard at the entrance of town is a lanky man with determination in his eyes, yet even he remained wordless when I'd passed him not a minute ago.

I didn't come here for the scrutiny of dozens of people, however; balling up all those stares and disposing of them takes its own sort of talent.

My eyes don't need to seek the inn for my feet to have already taken me there, and I'm painstakingly pushing the stubborn wooden door of it open, careful to not bump Clarissa's slender body into the frame.

Immediately, a woman too familiar to me whispers, "_Jace_?" And every thought, every idea, every thread of a whim, dissipates.

Her voice is a hammer to the stone walls the Keep had forced me to build around myself. A warm, comforting flame melting the shards of ice trapped inside me. Her voice takes the name Wayland and shrivels it letter by letter, takes the lies I've told and sets them ablaze.

Her voice is a jarring reminder of who I used to be, before Jonathan Wayland.

Again, she pleads, "_Jace_," as if I'm a hallucination, real as a world without the menace of greed. Wisps of her withering caramel hair tangle with her fingers as her quivering hands raise—the same hands that carried me when I only knew but a few words—to cover her face.

"I—" I'm trying to nag something smart to say to Amatis, but it's like trying to find a rose in a field of concrete, so instead the choked words that stumble from my mouth are, "I need a place to put her."

The laugh trudging out of her is tied with tears, and the lilt of it sends dizzying waves of nostalgia through me: I'm a child again, and there's balmy sunlight glittering all over the living area and I'm playing a stupid game that has awful rules with Isabelle and Alec. Amatis is calling us for lunch, but we're adamant that hunger can't harm us because the awful rules don't say so.

And I'm so happy, that the world around me fades to nothing but our elated squeals and Amatis's elated laughter, because she's trying to pull us all to the dinner table, pretending to have a hard time catching us.

-()-

Turning the past eight years of my life into a mere story in just a few hours, over a cut of meat and coffee, proves to be easier than I'd have thought. I find myself glimpsing down the hallway to my left, where all the doors to the suites are, to check if Clarissa's woken up yet.

And plus, I've something to say to her now. _I thought you'd die in your sleep_. Now, this may not seem like the work of a genius, but considering I _did_ take the liberty of shooting her—well, I didn't aim the gun anywhere that could kill her—I thought I'd demean myself just a bit.

A frown melts onto my face, however, when I think of how she might respond; there is no good reply to "I thought you'd die in your sleep."

Sighing, I divert myself to Amatis, relishing the fact that I can say whatever comes to mind, without a filter attached to my lips. "I've always wondered," I begin, still enthralled by the heavenly food that lay in front of me. "Why you chose Hateno. After leaving the Herondale district, you could have traveled from one end of the earth to the next. But instead, you decide to station yourself in the most abysmal place mankind could think of? Has—has someone forced you here?"

Her eyes rolling reminds me of a tendril of smoke swirling about. "I thought you'd have figured out by now." She gazes at me, curiously. "The runaways, the escapees, the helpless. All of them from the Keep, and somehow each and every one is directed towards Hateno." Something about her tone, a crescendo of warning and all-knowing, weary, makes me stop chewing. "Jace, this place is a trap. They each seek refugee here, each go to the blacksmith to break their chains, each come to this very inn for a fragment of rest."

"And they're each found," I say. A terrible weight has burrowed into my chest.

"I'm here, Jace, because these runaways deserve more than just food and a place to sleep, after the hell they've been through. They deserve a chance at freedom, and I do all I can to give that to them. I give them maps, food, water—_anything_ I can, to leave these lands and never come back." Every word of hers is congested in potent determination, fervour.

I take her skilled hands in mine, and even though they barely weigh anything, they seem heavy with decades of hardship and experience. Childishly, holding them pushes me to miss my mother. Then I'm missing my father, my family.

"Isn't is truly pathetic when a miserable grandmother is more capable than the most of us?" I blurt mindlessly, out of the need to distract myself. I can't afford to miss people I'll see again, one day.

"You dimwit, I'm barely fifty," she murmurs lightly.

Oddly, it's as if I can breathe again when she retracts her hands.

-()-

The smell of steamed vegetables is akin to a drying sewer, so I'm almost thankful when the plate stuffed with these vegetables nearly topples in my hand and shatters on the ground. That thankfulness scrams, like a delinquent about to be caught, as the biting, matter-of-fact touch of a knife licks past my arm the second I open the door to the cozy little room I'd lain Clarissa in. I'm a bit saddened that the dagger has nicked my shirt—a very new, very comfortable shirt, must I say.

Yet, I'm aware that the moment I'm still, the moment we both know that there's nothing guarding me but a plate of dead plants, a hailstorm of daggers will have rained upon me.

The wind and trees and leaves hardly have time to shift before I've cruelly twisted the metal of the daggers in her slim hands; the eternal power toiling deep at my core seems to purr at the use of my magic.

My gaze soars to her now, the chaos of skin and bones and simmering anger that she is, and I'm wondering how she'll try to hurt me next. How she'll try to wrap me around her fingertips and break me.

I toss the plate towards her, cautious in not getting too close, and say, "I've read somewhere in a book that greetings with knives are for the more important people. _'A killing vessel for those who are special—_"

Her scratchy voice is harsh against the warm tones of the room, the pristine sounds coming through the window, of the prattling grass and the increasingly loud din of crickets. "I'm sure the Keep would love to know you can bend metal, manipulate earth."

For so long, I'd only felt and seen the undisturbed rising-falling of her chest as she'd slept. But now, as her breaths are heaving, labored, a suppressed part of me curls in on itself. Out of shame or longing, I'll never know.

"Interesting, don't you think, how even after eight years, they'd still never found out?" I ponder, more to myself. Interesting, indeed.

"Unlike them," she says bitterly. "When I want to know something, I intend to find out." At long last, the emeralds of her eyes, scribbled with rumbling threat, clatter into me. "So tell me, Wayland, what the hell do you want with me?"

When I answer, it's been a few seconds, but even though the words have been dripping into my throat for hours, they're tangling on my tongue. "The Keep and its allies have been almost as indestructible as the flow of time itself for decades. Every attempt to thwart them has failed. Do you know why this is, Clarissa?" I ask this question for dramatic effect, and I'm a bit relieved when she answers immediately with a glare. "You. It's all thanks to you."

Confusion and offense unfurls across her face, so I take it as my cue to spill the Keep's plans into the room, to wipe the fogged paradigm the Keep had surely enlisted upon her, but then the door slams open loud enough to shake the moon and my head jolts around to see Amatis, panicked and disarrayed, babbling so many words that the syllables are tripping over themselves.

The conversation between Clarissa and I has torn like paper, and I'm grabbing Amatis's shoulders, forcing her to just _look at me. _"I didn't know they'd be here so _soon_, I thought we'd have at least a few days. This is all wrong—it's _all going so wrong_," she hurls the words all in a gasp.

But amongst the waterfall of mutters pouring from her mouth, there's one phrase that rings true, one phrase that sends dread bleeding into my bones.

"They're here, Jace—the Keep. All of them."

* * *

**A/N: Hello my lovelies! Here's a quick reminder that this is soo AU, and I'm sorry if you don't like that kind of thing :/ **

**I also wanted to thank each and every one of you for all the wonderful support, like i can't breathe i love y'all so much wtf ;-; **

**Review for a previewwwww, they keep me writing faster :))) **

**I hope y'all have had wonderful days, and now that summer's started, Imma be updating SO MUCH ****😤😤 ooooh and there's a Legend of Zelda reference in here because I got really lazy and needed to name the town something, I hope no one important finds this fic lol. okay well it's so late and im exhausted, so I'll catch you in the next one!  
**

**-RWMS**


	3. Bones Sinking Like Stones

_Clary_

* * *

_All of them_.

The words ricochet through my body, rebounding again and again against my skin.

And, for a moment, the world around me has paused and I'm alone, on a blank field with my thoughts sprouting from the ground, my fears manifesting into things alive around me. I can see what'll happen, see the meticulous tapestry of my plans and efforts being unraveled, thread by thread.

Jonathan Wayland is the strangest, strongest anomaly in the Keep's ranks, but still they'll tie his arms and watch the life slowly slither from his eyes. They'll find out he has the magic of our earth tracing his veins, a timeless, divine power, and exploit it as much as they can, as they've been doing for decades.

Then, they'll exploit me, too, all over again.

The fear hovering over me shrivels, replaced by a crooked anger-determination mix. Alone, I'll have no way of sneaking past the town's borders. I'll be caught too easily, as if picking the petal from a flower. Using Wayland, however . . . using Wayland, the margin that I'll truly make it out stretches, as if picking a root from soil.

My eyes lift to him now, and I'm struck with how many emotions tumble out of him. His eyes are gold works of stifling tactic, the same tactic bred into those of the Keep, and the muscles in his jaw feather when he looks at the disheveled woman at the door, whose unrelentingly loud mouth is starting to spark the annoyance in me.

On a whim, if just to stop her useless, trivial rant, and to not feel entirely helpless, I say, allowing irritation to twirl in my tone, "Fix the daggers you've broken, Wayland." I glance at the woman—who has, indeed, shut up—briefly, and I'm selfishly proud that I'm not a thawing mess on the outside, like she is, though I've all the more reason to be. "They look ridiculous like that. Surely, you'd have been perfectly capable of making a more interesting shape with them."

His smile is sarcastic and sugary, but with a careless twitch of his hand, the daggers once again twinkle confidently under the moonlight dripping through the window.

A retort to what I'd said brims on his lips, but the woman abandons her babbles and speaks understandably now, a tick more composed. "Under the sink, in washroom three rooms down to your left, there's a stash of food and clothes and maps." The balanced, calm shell encasing me cracks when she looks up and down the hallway; her mist-colored eyes seem to tremble. "They'll be in here within minutes—grab the materials and _run_, Jace. I'll tell them you're staying on the top floor, tell them you're sound asleep. I'll stall." My heart wants to break for her, the small strip of her remaining life she's laying bare for the Keep's soldiers to destroy, but I don't allow it to.

I only feel this bud of respect for her, and then she's gone, footsteps only a fragile whisper on the floors.

Quickly, Wayland says, "Come on," while producing a blade from his backpack, before slinging it on his back. The daggers resting beside me find their way into my steady hands, and as I trail him down the hall, hyperaware of every tremor around me, I find a grin wriggling its way onto my face. Above it all, my life hasn't swelled with this much anticipation, this much danger, in years. It's been a constant stream of boredom and pain, alternating as they pleased. But now, it's all out of balance.

I feel in control, yet it all could erupt into a conflagration of radiant disaster at any moment.

We reach the washroom, and surely, there it is: a heavy-duty satchel made for long journeys across plains of snow and sand, a few weeks' worth of questionable food, a couple of clothes, plus a neatly folded map.

"And we get out of here, how?" I inquire, and, as if a leash is tied from my eyes to his, I trace his vigilant gaze to the window in the room. "Tell me what I'm going to do if someone from the Keep is perched outside that window, Wayland?"

The look he gives me is a sketch of disinterest. "That's not going to happen; amusingly, they all have the stealth of a moping whale." The sentence seems to tie a knot, since I'm suddenly heaving the satchel in my arms, he's promptly lifted the glass of the window, and then, swift as the stroke of a paintbrush, he flips himself out of the room.

"Wonderful," I mumble dully. Following Wayland's every move—every breath, footstep, mannerism—because I've not a chance without him, makes the muscles beneath my skin falter and twitch. He split my shackles, but for what worth? Nevertheless, the perfect shadow, I mirror his movements out of the window, the new shoes on my feet crinkling the lush grass.

A moment of peace drapes itself over my ears, and then it's ripped apart by armies of screams and cries and panic. One glance at the surrounding town tells me the Keep has spread its cunning claws over this place. One glance shows how the doors of houses are being torn open by the Keep's forces, ravaging all that they can in order to find what's been lost. In order to find me.

"Look for cloaks in the bag," Wayland instructs beside me, picking out our surroundings.

My fingers make fast work of undoing the belts of the satchel, lifting the boxes of food and careful not to cut myself on the daggers I'd placed in it. "And if there are none?"

"We'll be noticed far too easily." Wool snags at my fingertips, and I pull at it until the entire piece is in my lap. Indeed, a traveling cloak it is, and it's on my body in seconds. I toss the satchel at Wayland, then take it back once he's found a larger fit of what I'm wearing.

Our thoughts hum the same thing, and we're both melding to the backside of the inn, darkness dancing dynamically around us. I feel suffocated, as if the air itself is plotting to come together and choke me. But while we inch towards the storage houses eastward of the inn, the shouts of the townsfolk building and bubbling, a barrage of footsteps plays loudly to my left, and before any reactions ignite in my brain, Wayland grabs my arm and has me running to catch up with him.

A cluster of petite houses can barely be seen behind the curve of the hill the inn is built on, but the fumes of smoke folding through the sky are indicator enough that they're there.

The footsteps grow louder, and mine grow quicker, skidding down the steepness of the slope. At a point, a truly very inconvenient stone has nudged into my shoes, and another has made me trip, the skin of my hands and face grating against grass, dotted with coarse clumps of dirt.

Wiping my face with a chunk of my cloak, my legs pushing forward automatically, ease floats gently through me at the sight of the soft light from the houses breaking the depthless night. I catch Wayland's form sliding slickly behind one of the homes, simply a cut of shadow clipping in and out of sight. I'm envious of it, how awfully skillful he seems to be.

The cobble of the houses is laced with vines and moss, the warm lights velvety to look at, and it all encloses me as I'm trying to find where Wayland went. My eyes hurtle from one side of me to another, my hands reaching for one of the daggers buried in the satchel. An eerie feeling drips from my heart to my feet, then seeps back up again—the feeling of being watched, every twitch of my body monitored, judged.

I figure quickly enough that it's Wayland, and I turn to glare at him, but then a hand gloved in thick, black material cages my mouth, and an arm, clad in black, pushes against my stomach. It hits the guard that my hands clutches a dagger, because he's twisting my arms around my back, letting go of my mouth.

And I can't even scream. Because then the Keep will know my whereabouts, and I'll be pulled back like a door.

"Not so bright at escaping from _anything_, are you?" So, _so_ much anger eddies through my very bones, and it's unlikely I'll ever be calm when Velasquez opens his bastard mouth.

"I didn't think I'd have to put in an effort," I say lowly, allowing that anger to singe my voice. "But now, seeing as the most pitiful one of you has found me, it won't be too hard to pull free of you."

A short-lived grin pulls my lips upwards as he snarls, "How I'll _savour_ watching you scream and bleed once I've returned you to where you belong." He slams me against the nearest house, the beautiful cobble now my greatest enemy as it thrashes against my head, my shoulders. It saddens me that the daggers I'd once held are now biting into the exposed flesh of my throat. The rasp of his voice, a voice I've grown to hate, along with many others, is uncomfortable by my ear while he growls, "I'd kill you if I could, filthy bitch. Pity that Valentine treasures you so dearly."

"Jealous of a filthy bitch, Velasquez?" Another voice that twists my veins in the most unnerving, furious way slices in: Wayland. "Frankly, I'd expected a bit worse from you. You were always the most disappointing, I suppose."

A sour laugh trudges from Velasquez's mouth, and he pulls me in front of him once more, the blade fitting itself nicely against my skin. "_Don't _fucking speak down to me, you son of a whore." The arm at my chest presses with a building's force against me, and I realize it—_serum_. To increase strength, agility. He could overpower us in less than a minute.

"Call me that again," Wayland challenges, warning blotting the majority of his tone. "I _dare _you."

"You're a son of a whore, Wayland," Velasquez states, the words oddly cold. "You're a son of a whore and a lying fucking traitor. We gave you everything—_everything_!" Despite the hood partially casting his face in darkness, the scalding fury shaping to his features is clear as the first puddle of sunlight after a storm. And as he draws his blade from his belt, a sharp zing of pain blossoms on my throat as the chilled metal of the dagger tears my skin. "I'll cut her if you move, Wayland. I'll drain her of her dirty, foul blood, and it'll be all because of you."

For the first time, webs of shock tangle around Wayland. "You wouldn't."

The agility that the serum gives him annoys me, since he's managed to drag the dagger along my right arm before I can take my next breath, and warm crimson slathers my skin. "Oh, but I would."

"You're sick," Wayland throws the words at Velasquez with so much venom that the world seems to shake.

"But you're so much worse, aren't you? You were _nothing _before the Keep, and you'll be nothing without us. I'd always wondered how a weak fuckup like you could have gotten to such a high position—_general Wayland_." He lets out a great back-slapping laugh. "And now I know, don't I? Now I know you can lie your way into ruling the world, if you wanted to! Now I know you'd betray and betray until you've got _no one_." His voice gains a delirious twist to it. "Any more lies, Jonathan Wayland? Or have you gotten sick of yourself?"

"Would it interest you if I had one more lie to tell, Bat? It's quite the exquisite one, though. Even the duller ones would be a bit moved." If Wayland aimed to anger, he hit bull's eye. But his posture is confident, as if he could shift the orbit of the earth if he so wished.

"Burn in hell, Wayland. Burn until you've got nothing but bone left in your pathetic body."

My eyes clack against the tumultuous landscape of Wayland's, and then I understand. I understand this last lie.

And then it happens, all at once. The blade at my throat crumples, metal fragile as paper under Wayland's power. Bolts of rock and mud and sand like lightning in striking Velasquez and me, but I expect the force of the earth revolting against me. As I heave for breath, wanting to clutch my entire body from unrelenting pain, I grab the contorted dagger—maybe I'll just frame this one instead of getting it fixed again—from Velasquez's bruised hand, then I watch the world blend together, an odd painting where all the colors are swished together out of confusion, as I sprint away from both of them.

I haven't noticed until now, but men and women from the surrounding homes have clumped together, and I rush to the closest person, begging for some sort of bandage or water or anything to stop my eyes from zipping closed, to dam the agony rushing through my body.

A small family embraces my battered form, leading me carefully up the steps to their home, where I hope a wonderfully fluffy blanket and divinely warm water reside.

Wayland does say one thing more, so bitter and final that gratification sweeps cleanly through me. "It's written that I burn. But you? You'll live and live until you wish you could have my fate."

* * *

**A/N: okay but really, this chapter needs heavy editing ****if anyone's up to beta this story then PM me or smth oof, bc I'm too scared to look over my chapters jdjsjd**

**I recommend listening to Roslyn by Bon Iver and St. Vincent, btw. I named the story after one of the lyrics. The entire song is layers of just guitar and Bon Iver and St. Vincent singing together. It's simply heavenly, I love it. **

**Tell me what you think of the chapter and the song, if you listen to it, I'd love to hear it all! **

**Review for a preview, as always **

**I watched Aladdin, and it disappointed me more than I expected it to. It's a good movie, right, but then everyone's acting is so mediocre, except for Will fucking Smith. The "oh that's hot!" guy has better acting skills than the whole cast. yikes. i also dreamed of meeting all of Coldplay last night and broke into sobs. **

**okay bye lol, see you all soon!**

**\- RWMS**


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